baby tweet

Apparently the handle "@mayashukla" isn't yet claimed on Twitter. Is it weird that I feel an urge to sign up under my daughter's name just so someone else doesn't take it? Probably, yes. But @GoodnightMartini won't fit. I'd have to be @GoodnightMartin, which obviously wouldn't work (I don't know anyone named Martin). I haven't had any inclination until this very moment to join Twitter. Honestly, I'm just too lazy. I don't want one more thing to check. I don't want to know people's random thoughts. I don't think anyone wants to know mine. I hardly get on Facebook as it is. I might be tempted though ... maybe this is what moving out of the city does to me.

Know what handle is available? Shuklanator. Restrain my typing fingers.

update: Internet help me, I signed up. Follow me @sara_shukla. That is if I ever tweet anything. This is what happens when Anil goes to work at 5, so we have dinner at 4, and once Maya is in bed at 7 I have too much of nothing to do... and apparently it's going to rain here for the next 24 hours.

design on hiatus

I'm not sure what's happening with the design here. I got my former background design from a web site called Cutest Blog on the Block (specifically "bird in a pear tree" design, and I'm noting that here so that I can remember how to find it when I have time to figure this out). Over the past month, it's just disappeared. And there was that floating "deleted picture" box. So for now I'm just using a simple Blogspot template, but I'm not happy about it. Hopefully I can figure this out soon.

I now have to get Maya ready for swimming lessons at the gym (that's right!), but for now, here she is trying to find a Sox game on TV in Virginia.

Wherein having a 6 month old baby precludes having time to write about a 6 month old baby

Biggest blog slacker ever, I know. Hang in there, please, I'm not going to let this blog languish forever! Turns out that moving and getting set up in a new town and new life doesn't lend itself to taking the time and energy to write about it all. Go figure. But we're getting in a groove here.

Maya is actually about to wake up, any moment now, from her morning nap, so I'm going to post and run for today. Here is a crazy cute photo of us at the beach (yes, from a month ago). More to come of us in Charlottesville. Maya's latest adventures have included swimming and a baby gym class, as well as making sounds using the letter "d." Very exciting.

P.S. I don't know why there's this floating window saying something about a picture being deleted. Does it show up on your view of the blog? I'll try to take care of it before 2015.

sloooooowly settling in

It's slow going over here, but we're getting settled, I think. Our movers ran a few days late, so we were in the new house for about a week without any of our stuff or the opportunity to start unpacking. We camped out with the travel crib, air mattress, and Bailey's bed all in Maya's new room. This was our living room for the week.

For me, settling in has been a mixture of familiarity and change. We lived in Charlottesville for four years before moving to Boston, so there's a sort of muscle memory to moving back. But it was a different time for us (med school, mid-twenties), and a lot happened in the last three years. So while we recognize the area and are lucky enough to have some great friends to fall back into step with, it's still all very different.

We built quite a life in Boston--we became parents there. So I miss things like the bar/restaurant down the street that we frequented at least twice a week on average. It goes without saying that I miss the people we used to frequent it with. It was the place that made us feel normal again after having Maya. When it was cold, we'd zip her into her down Patagonia bunting and she'd sleep on Anil's chest in the Baby Bjorn while we clinked pint glasses. And when it warmed up, I'd strap on the Bjorn and Maya and I would walk down to meet my friend Katie for a beer on the patio. It was so empowering and exciting to have made it to that point. It may sound cliche, but I felt like the "cool new mom" that I hoped I could be. Actually, I just felt like myself again, just with a bit of a jelly belly, but that's where the placement of the Bjorn is brilliant.

We went to dinner at this place, American Craft, part of what we called our beer theme park (Belgium bar, bottle shop, and craft beer bar), on our last night in town. As we left, one of the managers said he'd see us the same time tomorrow, and we told him we were literally getting in the car to drive to Virginia right then. One of the waiters joked that they were going to go under without our constant business.

Then we got ready to leave. This was about when I lost it.

Charlottesville has been good to us, though. Two days after the movers came, we went to the Outer Banks for a week (beach baby pics to come), so this is really our first week unpacking and figuring out what to do with ourselves. So far, that includes getting lunch at a new taco place three days in a row. And we've gone to our old haunt, South Street Brewery, for beers, the past two days in a row. We're creatures of habit; we just have an extra creature in tow with us now. A little one.

we're here!

Team Shukla made it to Charlottesville, pretty much intact. Here is the highlight reel, in the order that my brain can recall:

• On Tuesday, we decided to break the trip up into two days, starting in about five hours from when we made that decision. So Anil and I hauled around town during the day Tuesday so that we could start our drive right after dinner. We figured it would correspond with Maya's bedtime, around 7 p.m., so it made more sense to drive four or so hours at night when she would be asleep rather than gamble with the morning. We'd also rather be awake later at night than earlier in the morning. We powered through New York and New Jersey that night, arriving at a dog friendly hotel in New Jersey at 1 a.m. Maya was a champ; she went right to sleep at the hotel and gave us a good chunk of rest.

• Have you heard that while Benedryl makes most people drowsy, when given to some children it can actually make them really hyper instead? Our dog is one of those children. Bailey is a terrible passenger in the car. He whines incessantly on city roads, only mellowing out on the interstate. So we asked the vet if we could give him something to take the edge off of the long drive, and they said, sure, give him Benedryl. Internet, it made him unbearable. He whined the entire drive. So much worse than usual, which is already bad enough that we wanted to drug him. After the first night we figured he was just really anxious because of the move, so the next morning we gave him three pills instead of just two. And he got even worse! Whining, barking, pacing in the back of the Subaru. By the afternoon though, he was back to his usual level of annoyance, when the pills wore off. That's when our lightbulbs went on. No more Benedryl for Bailey.

• At around midnight, somewhere in New York, Anil's dad got a speeding ticket. We had two cars in Boston, so we drove one with the dog and baby, and Anil's dad followed us in the other car that was filled with our stuff for the interim between furnished homes (i.e. lots of stuff for the baby + our toothbrushes). We incredulously saw him pull over in response to blinking lights in the rearview mirror, so we pulled to the side of the road, and the longest fifteen or so minutes EVER ensued. Bailey flipped out. He woke up Maya, who started screaming. I was freaking out about a semi running into us because it's notoriously not a good idea to pull to the side of the highway in the middle of the night, Anil was cursing the state of New York. Just as we were ready to meet at the next exit, we saw the Jeep pull back onto the highway, so we did the same and got on our way. Anil's dad said it was his first ticket since 1975. When did all the highways go back to 55 MPH?

• If you ever need to plan a trip on the interstate, do not ask Anil or me for advice on where to stop along the way. We pick the worst exits. It was always either a route with a sign that said "Exxon 2 miles" after we'd taken the exit, or, in one case, a "travel center" in Baltimore that wasn't so much a plaza of fast food with a vast expanse of restrooms as it was a Greyhound station/drug depot. The bathroom's sinks were all missing. Anil's dad went in to get us some food, because we were starving and didn't want to stop again (this was the second attempt at lunch after a gas station revealed no acceptable options; to be fair, we didn't realize our options could get more unfortunate). When he realized that a whole pizza was cheaper than three individual slices, we ended up walking out of there with a giant pizza box, from which we ate in the parking lot.

• We missed traffic in every major area (Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, even D.C.), until we hit northern Virginia. Then we chugged along at snail's pace for three hours! We were sooooo close and yet the GPS kept pushing our arrival time later and later. It was torture. Maya was over the drive by then too. She was a trooper the entire time, but enough is enough, so she was wailing for the last hour or so. At least the Benedryl/cocaine had worn off of Bailey by that time.

We're at the house in Charlottesville now. We stayed in Richmond for two nights to take advantage of the creature comforts of a house with furniture, but now we're getting settled in our new digs, as much as you can on an air mattress (and travel crib), anyway. We're throwing a 4th of July backyard-warming party, so while the house is pretty much empty, we've set up patio furniture and a grill. We've sat out there the past two nights, drinking a beer while Maya sleeps happily in her new room and Bailey surveys his new turf, commenting on how odd it seems to have people be so nice, and on how many stars you can see in the sky above our deck.

committment

Here's another thing I swore I wouldn't do when I had a baby... I've been in my gym clothes since I left the house this morning, just so I wouldn't have to factor in a change of clothes later. I am that woman in yoga pants and tank top with the Baby Bjorn in Target. Or I was, a few hours ago. Now I'm that woman in the same yoga pants and tank top at home, not at the gym yet. But I'm about to leave for it, and I'm 95% certain that I wouldn't actually be going if I hadn't been in these damn clothes all day. After getting home from morning moving errands with Anil, and after Maya took only a 30 minute afternoon nap, I thought about skipping the gym since I have more moving errands to run and I'm now afraid Maya will be grumpy and overtired. So far she has a perfect disposition record at the gym's nursery and I don't want to jinx that right before we leave. But nope, I refuse to have worn these pants all day without actually doing something that requires lycra legwear. Because that would be worse--then I'd just be that woman who wore work out clothes all day because she couldn't bear to put on real clothes. I've been that person plenty of times, don't get me wrong. Just not today.

Rolling!

We were super excited last week when Maya rolled from her back to her tummy for the first time, but now we think it's created a roly poly monster. A one-sided one. She rolled from her tummy to her back a few weeks before, but that required us putting her on her tummy first. Then she'd push up on her hands, arch her back, tuck and shoulder and roll. The back-to-front roll came after lots of side rolling. Then she got her hips and legs over completely, but she still had an arm that would stay stuck underneath her body. Last Wednesday, Anil and I literally sat and watched her for like two minutes (felt like it anyway) while she struggled and succeeded in getting that pinned arm free and made it officially onto her tummy. We were cheering her on, and every time I reached forward to give Maya and encouraging pat, Anil grabbed me back, thinking I was going to help her.

Now, Internet, she's mastered the roll, and it's ALL SHE DOES. Over and over again. Which would be fine, if she didn't keep getting stuck on her tummy. And crying. It hasn't clicked that once she rolls to her tummy, she can push off and roll back onto her back. And I'm sure when it does, it'll be another kind of monster because she'll roll across the floor and we'll have to check for her under the couch (just kidding). But for now, we put her on her baby gym (the floor mat with fun hanging things that used to entertain her for like 30 sweet sweet minutes), we walk across the room, then we hear her cry, look back, and she's flailing on her tummy. By flailing I mean waving her arms and legs while arching up on her belly, almost like a really bad surfer paddling out. So we stroll back over, and we help her roll to her back again, and literally IMMEDIATELY she rolls to her tummy again. She's okay for a minute... until she isn't. Then we go back over and roll her again. And again. And again. And then we strap her into the bouncy seat.

This is how I found her the other morning after I unswaddled her. Usually I undo her swaddle when she wakes up, then she's happy to hang out in her crib for a few minutes, "talking" to herself and rolling on her side and back. I call it baby snooze button. But now that she can roll all way over...

See the way her arm is blurry from the flailing? We've been trying to transition her out of the swaddle too, so have been leaving one arm out for naps. But this morning, her nap ended in loud crying, and Anil found her on her tummy, holding her face off of the mattress with the one arm. That makes me want to phase out the swaddle even more, because if she can roll, I want her to have arms free so she can push up. But then again, what if she just ends up rolling and then crying anyway? At this point, so I read, it's okay for her to sleep her on tummy if she turns herself onto it, because her arms and neck are strong enough to keep her airway clear, but something tells me it'll be a while longer until she's happy in that position. It's fun to see her try to figure it out though.